FIG. 1 is a general configuration diagram of a conventional communication data volume measuring system. A conventional method for billing will now be described with reference to FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional communication data volume measuring system comprises contents servents 11, 12 that provide contents, a gateway 20, a charging (measuring) point 30, a charhe server 40, and clients 51 to 53.
For example, let us assume that the contents server 11 provides contents to the client 51 through packet communication. The contents server 11 includes in a packet information such as the destination (client 51) and transmits the packet to the gateway 20. The packet transmitted to the gateway 20 is then transmitted to the charging point 30 that in turn transmits it to the client 51. The billing point 30 measures (counts) a packet level communication data volume. That is, the charging point 30 measures the communication data volume of the relayed packet in order to charge for only the relayed packet. The measured value is transmitted to the charge server 40, and the charge service 40 performs a process of billing the measured value thus received.
Referring to charge types, some billings are made to clients (end users), and others are made to servers (contents servers) in accordance with the service type. In the latter case, more specifically, charging may be made separately by each of a plurality of contents servers e.g., companies A and B or maybe made separately for each of a plurality of service types.
However, according to the conventional method of billing shown in FIG. 1, since the billing point 30 cannot interpret data at application level, it cannot identify to which service type the data of each packet belongs.
It is an object of the invention to measure the communication data volume for each service type when measuring communication data volumes in a billing process.